Saturday, October 2, 2021

 Saturday, October 2, 2021

 

     I slept in till dawn.  I ran into Vince and Julie as I walked. Vince asked if I was okay because they hadn’t seen me for several days.  I had been walking a different route, going up Kukuna. I didn’t do it yesterday or today because Elsa wanted to go to the left coming out of the driveway.  When I take my short walks during the day, I usually turn to the left. I think she hoped she could force me to take a quick walk instead of my long one. She is always behind me as we walk away from the house and in front of me, pulling on the leash as we head back.  Besides, seeing Vince and Julie, our old turkey flock had returned.  They disappeared for a while. Vince, who feeds them each morning, asked if I knew what had happened to them.  I had no idea. His explanation today: they had checked out ‘greener pastures’ and decided this was their best bet.

     At 9 am I had an appointment with the M & W sisters. M continued missing words that we had been reading every day.  I had her read the Carpenter selections starting with the first one every time. She was missing words that she had read repeatedly. I finally asked her if she had trouble remembering words. Yep. Ah!

     I showed her how to implement automatic recall. For one reason or another, she was reluctant to allow this to happen.  I teach it by drawing a crude picture of the head and brain and telling students to let information to ‘sink’ into long-term memory and then retrieve it.  It is a big adjustment if you are not used to it. It’s up there with “let go and let God.” It can be scary giving up conscious control.   Often when the students allow it to happen, they can feel the neurological surge.  Of course, those of us used to it no longer feel it.  Students stop being aware of it shortly after they start using it regularly. We are generally unaware of systems that work; we are only aware when things don’t work, which is why many students can give me an amazing amount of information about what goes on in their brains. M didn’t ‘feel’ the information slide down through the hippocampal formation into long-term memory, but she reported she felt weird.  Weird in this context is good; it means there has been a change. Something unfamiliar is going on. We had some time left in our session, but it didn’t feel right to continue. I didn’t want her to take control of her mind.  Her mother was sitting there. I told her to have M  play with the clay or, better yet, nap, so the change could consolidate. A shift like this is a little like moving something damming the neurological flow. The brain knows what to do on its own once the interference is removed.

    While W’s reading sounded much more fluent, she was making small errors. I decided to start her on Phase I of The Phonics Discovery System.  I told the mother about the impact on my reading of making my 5 Stories audio file.  It increased my reading speed, changed my speech, made it easier for me to listen to others, and changed how I listened to music. Since I was 58 at the time, had a 760 out of 800 on the verbal section of the SAT, and straight A’s in grad school, I felt it was safe to claim that I was a reasonably good reader before I made the tape. Seeing the impact on me, I expanded my expectations for this little audio file. I have used it successfully to help several students with speech and reading problems.  It impacts the auditory processing system. 

       I had adolescent D a bit later in the morning. He has been listening to the audio file nonstop. It took forever to get him started. I don’t know if we got his auditory working memory functioning with the BrainManagementSkills, allowing him to respond to the audiofile or if the audiofile was responsible for opening the center. Either way, he’s become a manic listener to the file now.  We’ll see if it makes a huge difference or not.

      In our last session, he was surprised when he got a word correctly.  I told him that’s what automatic processing feels like when it works.  Before this, his automatic processing often gave him the wrong word, ‘by accident,’ according to D. Of course, by accident. But we want the accidents to produce correct responses more often than incorrect ones. That ‘accident’ is often referred to as “the magic that is handed out  on the day some kid who has a reading problem was absent.”  We continued working on Phase I in The Phonics discovery System.  He is open to this process now.  Today he applied what he learned about the pronunciation of -ure from nature to endure.  They are not pronounced the same. Why am I excited? Because D applied a pattern.  By the way, the mispronunciation of endure using this association gets him close enough to figure out the word using context clues.

    I’ve been feeling strangely fuzzy-headed, a little like I’m getting over a smoking or drinking binge.  It just occurred to me, it may be my reaction to the toxic volcanic fumes. 

   Judy called. She was feeding Lukey.  He is her extremely disabled three-year-old grandson.  He has a bad case of the FoxG1 genetic disorder. He will never be able to do as much as a two-month-old child. He is very disabled. He is one lucky boy. His parents and grandparents live on a single compound and adore him as he is.  Judy’s older sister, Ginny, had two disabled children. One died in her twenties. Ginny is now an 89, taking care of her 58-year-old son, who needs EVERYTHING done for him. She has done this all his life and continues to do so with love and joy. Some amazing family!!  Judy tells me Ginny’s other two kids have pushed her to find a placement for Jimmy; Ginny and her husband will not last forever.  I expressed concern for how Ginny would feel without Jinny to fill her days. She said, no worries, Ginny has a full life. Jimmy goes to school every day, and Ginny takes off, plays with girlfriends, and participates in church activities. Wow!

     Poor Damon has had to listen to me go on and on about my grief about a bad social situation. I texted him to tell him I had my emotions under control for the movement. He should be sure to call me while things are still good. 

    I watched a documentary about Carpenters. What a sleaze that brother is.  The film was in praise of his contributions to their success.  I don’t doubt that his musicality did make a substantial contribution.  However, it wouldn’t have been enough to give him his career without Karen as the front man.  Her voice was incredible. After she died, he fell into oblivion.  Here’s the problem: I think he used his sister without regard for her preferences.  He made the success of their band his absolute priority. Karen didn’t want to sing; she wanted to play the drums. He could have compromised and allowed her to sing while playing the drums. He says that peeling her off the drums and getting her to stand out front took enormous effort. He says that with zero awareness of how he took advantage of her and made her life a misery.  He makes me want to puke.

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Musings:

    A friend of mine sent me a link to a meditation to help control intrusive, upsetting thoughts. Here’s the problem, quieting the thoughts does not quiet the body response if the problem is rooted in PTSD. 

    I recently read that the fight/flight/freeze response is turned off during sleep for normal people, giving the body a chance to recover. For those with PTSD, this response never turns off. The body is always on alert.  Mike and I both had this problem. Mike would have nightmares and call out in his sleep.  There is no complete peace if the trauma isn’t healed.

    I can feel my body going into action before my mind knows what is going on. Something triggers the response, and my nervous system is off and running.  My obsessive thoughts just try to keep up with what is going on in my body, trying to make sense of them. Otherwise, I just have this fear coursing through my body with no explanation. Searching for an explanation means searching for a way to solve the problem, even though it often only makes matters worse. 

   Dealing with the trigger can help quiet the feelings somewhat, but not completely. Two things helped me find calm over these many years: Mike’s desire to protect me and the Vipassana meditation.   Vipassana focuses on physical sensation as well as quieting the mind.  In fact, it directs you to use your mind only to deal with the sensations in your body.   When I use that, I can calm down somewhat.  The trauma of your childhood can be overwhelming.